US politics

Ann Arbor (Informed Comment) – There is a lot of buzz inside the Beltway, most of it generated inside the Beltway, about possible hostilities between Iran and the Trump administration in the Mad President’s last 17 days in office. Some of this buzz is around today’s January 3rd, 2020, anniversary of Trump’s assassination of Gen. […]

Bill of Rights

The Trump Administration’s Final Push to Make It Easier for Religious Employers to Discriminate

ProPublica

By Lydia DePillis | – ( ProPublica ) – It was the hectic week before Thanksgiving, and Amrith Kaur — the legal director of an advocacy group called the Sikh Coalition — was not prepared for a surprise update from the Equal Employment Opportunity Commission that could have dramatic consequences for her clients. With little […]

Climate Crisis

COVID-19, the US Election and our Desperate Need for Clean Air, Green Energy

Middle East Monitor

By Elif Selin Calik | – ( Middle East Monitor ) – One of the enduring images of 2020, the year of the pandemic, has been the sight of people connected to ventilators in hospitals. It is an image that helped us realise the importance of being able to breathe. Many have died because they […]

Climate Crisis

So long, Sucker! Top 6 Reasons we Won’t miss you, 2020, or Trump, either

Juan Cole

Ann Arbor (Informed Comment) – My late friend Fernando Coronil once observed that in order to understand the people of the past we must also understand their own visions of the future. In the 2014 science fiction film Edge of Tomorrow, based on a Japanese young adult novel All You Need Is Kill by Hiroshi […]

Donald Trump

“Those of Us Who Don’t Die Are Going to Quit”: Facing Piled-up Patients, lack of Gov’t PPE, Nurses Losing Hope

ProPublica

By J. David McSwane | — Almost a year into the pandemic, supply shortages remain so severe that nurse Kristen Cline reuses her N95 for several shifts while her hospital buckles, patients suffer and folks nearby socialize maskless as if the pandemic were already over. ( ProPublica) – Nurse Kristen Cline was working a 12-hour […]

Donald Trump

The Arrogance of Superpower: Trump will “Let” Iranians import Coronavirus Vaccine

Juan Cole

Ann Arbor (Informed Comment) – Trump has given Iran permission to buy the coronavirus vaccine, according to Sharif Nizam Mafi, the head of the Iran-Switzerland join chamber of commerce. Take a moment to let the enormity of this statement sink in. The United States of America will let Iran have the coronavirus vaccine? Iran has […]

African-Americans

How Black Lives Matter Changed 2020 with Creative Tactics to Confront Systemic Racism

The Conversation

By Nimalan Yoganathan | – The police killings of Breonna Taylor and George Floyd have galvanized anti-racism protests throughout the United States, Canada and elsewhere. As a result, lawmakers have made pledges to divest from police and school districts have cut ties with law enforcement. The organizing of the Black Lives Matter (BLM) movement and […]

Donald Trump

Biden to invoke Defense Production Act for Vaccine manufacture. Trump? Playing Golf at Mar-a-Lago

Juan Cole

Ann Arbor (Informed Comment) – Will Feuer at CNBC reports that Joe Biden will invoke the Defense Production Act to ramp up the manufacture of more doses of the coronavirus vaccine. You may ask yourself, why has this not already been done? Trump said on December 9 that he “might” invoke the Korea War-era act, […]

China

How incompetent Boob Trump took down America and launched the Chinese Century

Juan Cole

Ann Arbor (Informed Comment) – The twentieth century was dubbed “the American Century” in 1941 by Time magazine publisher Henry Luce. Luce hoped that Americans would abandon their isolationism and seek international allies, joining against the Axis in WW II. It was then more wishful thinking on his part than reality, but his wish arguably […]